Conleigh
Well, that didn’t go as expected. I know I’m not always at the top of Holden’s list, but that was downright rude. Is he mad that Ezra asked him to help me collect the rest of my things? I’m half tempted to march in his room and give him an earful, but I stop myself. I’m already running late, and I don’t want to start off living here by fighting with Holden. I’m sure we will have our moments, but I would like to avoid them if possible.
I don’t know why I let him get to me.
I grab my bag and go wait by his rusty heap for him.
The whole ride to campus he doesn’t speak.
I break the silence. “What did you mean when you said that Ezra was probably fucking Judy?”
His grip on the steering wheel tightens. “Don’t know what you are talking about.” He stares straight ahead, unable to meet my eyes.
“I took you for a lot of things, Holden, but a liar wasn’t one of them.”
“I was drunk and being an asshole,” he offers with a shrug of his shoulder, but he still won’t look at me.
An uneasy feeling burns in the pit of my stomach, and I suddenly don’t feel like meeting with my advisor. I want to tell Holden to drive me to Ezra’s office so I can see for myself just how closely he is working alongside of Judy, but I don’t. I trust Ezra. I do, so why am I questioning it?
We make it to campus in record time, but there aren’t any decent parking spaces near the admissions building.
“It’s fine, I can walk. Just let me out here.”
“You aren’t walking that far in the cold rain, Con, you’ll catch a cold,” Holden growls at me.
Finally, a space opens up and Holden scrambles to lock it in before someone else nabs it. I hate being late, it makes me flustered and ruins my whole day. Not that it isn’t ruined already, between Ezra having to work, Holden’s jerkface performance, and now my being late, today is perfectly terrible. I’m not impressed with the start of my day. I thought Tuesdays were supposed to be a good day.
Today is feeling a hell of a lot more like a dirty Monday.
Grabbing my bag with my form in it, I thank Holden, and I make a mad dash for the administrative offices.
If I cut through the grass it will get me there faster, at least that’s my plan until I go sliding on the wet lawn and fall on my ass. Pain shoots up my elbow and I am scared to look at my wrist and see the damage.
Tears prick in the corners of my eyes as rain pelts down on me. Today my patience is really being tested.
I give. Screw the meeting, I will reschedule.
Mortified, I begrudgingly take the hand offered to me. Holden.
I sigh in relief as he hovers an umbrella over my head. “Thanks,” I tell him, using my good hand.
“Are you okay? I saw you go flying and tried to run after you, but I wasn’t fast enough.” He’s rolling his lips inward, fighting the laughter erupting from his chest.
I offer him a weak smile. “I’ll live. My wrist is hurting, but I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Just a little rain.” He grins again looking over my soaked appearance. “Looks like you have shitty britches.”
I flip him the bird and make the humiliating walk to my former dorm. I can hear snickers and giggles as people get a load at the mud that is marking the ass of my jeans.
Outside of my dorm, the rain has slowed to sprinkling.
“I’m gonna grab a coffee while you get cleaned up. I’ll see if I can find a closer parking space and see what we can fit into the cab of my truck. We can make a few trips if needed.”
“Thanks, Holden.”
“No problem.”
He walks off leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Inside my room, the one I shared with Bailey, for the past two years I feel nostalgic. This is the room where we grew so close. We shared heartache and laughter. The warm feeling doesn’t last long though. My eyes land on a photo of Ezra, on my desk. We made a lot of happy memories in this room too. Ezra first told me he loved me laying on my small bed. The butterfly wings in your stomach, can’t sleep, can’t eat feeling vanishes before it can really form. That new exciting feeling is gone. I shake away the memories we’ve made in this small room and change out of my tarnished clothing.
I need to do laundry anyway when I get back to the apartment.
Holden returns still wearing a shit eating grin spread across his asshole face.
“Here I was hoping you’d still be all wet.”
“I’m not in the mood, Holden,” I warn him.
“Come on, we both know it wouldn’t take much for me to get you in the mood,” he teases as he steps into the room, sucking up all of the oxygen with him.
I can’t fight the smile that tugs on the corners of my mouth. I shake my head and toss a bag at him. “Take this down to your truck, please.”
“Yes ma’am.” He salutes me like a dork.
Shaking off his antics, I go back to work sorting through the rest of my belongings.
I’m making good progress when Holden starts reading from one of my notebooks.
“He wrote poetry in waves that raged against the shore of my body and then he left me to drown.
My favorite flavor is the taste of you on my lips.
Slow like honey, I want to drip my essence on your tongue.
I can’t erase the stain of your sweat from my skin…I don’t want to.
The flick of my tongue against your clit…my desire.
A hole in my soul is all that you have left me with.
You give me butterflies…with one look.
I want to steal you away, take you somewhere he never has.
I want to touch you in places he’s never been.
I want to own you…every inch.”
His voice is cool and domineering and he speaks my words as though he wrote them himself.
“Did you write this?”
I nod as my face turns ten shades of red.
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed. I’m impressed.”
“You don’t think it’s dumb?”
His eyes soften and he steps closer to me as I go to grab my dirty wet clothes and stuff them into a bag. Holden grabs my wrist and fingers the black lace panties in my hand. “It’s hella sexy, Con.”
My body trembles as he takes the black lace garment and holds it up to his nose and inhales deeply. “Goddamn, you smell fucking good.”
“Holden, you shouldn’t…do that.”
He holds a finger to my lips and I desperately want to lick it.
“Why?”
“Because it isn’t right and you know it.” I yank my underwear back from his hold and shove them into the laundry bag. “We should get going.”
He nods, his eyes holding my attention.
“Did you write that about Ezra?”
“What? No. It’s for a book.”
“A book?”
“Yeah, just forget about it. It’s a pipe dream.”
“You want to be a writer?” He asks as he follows me out the door.
“It’s stupid.” I shake my head not wanting to get into this right now.
“If it wasn’t about Ezra then who was it about, Conleigh?”
“I told you. It was for a book I wrote.”
His brows perk up as we wait for the elevator. “You wrote a book.”
“I did. Can we please drop it?”
The elevator opens and we maneuver the last bags and boxes inside.
“Can I read it?”
“You want to read my book?”
“Why not?”
My eyes narrow on him as the elevator doors close. “You like to read?”
“There’s so much you don’t know about me.” He smirks as those damn steely eyes of his smolder at me daring to trap me in their gaze once more.
God, how I wish I could find out all the things I don’t know about this man, but I shouldn’t desire it. I shouldn’t have the urge to press the emergency stop button and do very bad things to my boyfriend’s best friend. Especially not Holden of all people. But when he looks at me like that, like he wants to eat me alive, I can’t help the images that fly through my head of him having his way with me. The images that inspired my book.
There is no way I can let Holden read it or Ezra for that matter. Not that he would want to. He finds reading to be boring. You see, my book I submitted to the publishing houses is my deepest and darkest fantasy. It’s about a man stealing his best friend’s wife.
It’s my wildest dreams, my darkest thoughts.
It’s all the things I wish Holden would do to me.